In the fall 2008 semester, Guest Columnists Barbara Tyroler from the Department of Art and Maria Salvadore from the College of Education teamed up to teach a seminar for University of Maryland Honors students — Childhood, Imagination, and Visualization: Photography and Creative Expression in Children’s Literature. This course combined digital technology with books and human interaction to create a unique and interesting teaching and learning experience.

By Barbara Tyroler and Maria Salvadore, Guest Columnists

We created our Honors course, Childhood, Imagination, and Visualization, to explore where and how the ability to gain information through visuals begins, consider why this ability is fundamental, and investigate how the creative, technical, and intellectual aspects of visualization work together as we grow. To accomplish these goals, students critically examined children’s books, gauged children’s responses to picture books, and used digital photography and imaging software to collaboratively write, design, and produce their own books to share with kindergarten students in the Center for Young Children (CYC) on campus.

Class meetings were divided between the kindergarten classroom in the CYC and the Macintosh OIT Computer Lab in the Computer and Space Sciences Building. Students worked in groups within which individuals with more advanced experience in the technology of image capture, image processing, and design/image output were paired with classmates who had more sophisticated knowledge of children’s literature and research. Some class sessions focused on teaching basic level skills in camera operations, image composition and editing, and design. Other sessions capitalized on the CYC’s Book Buddies program, which paired the college students with kindergarteners for reading time. These sessions gave course participants a chance to learn firsthand how young children respond to and engage with picture books. Students also had a brief but significant opportunity to meet with a practicing expert in the field, Lori Epstein, professional photographer and Illustrations Editor of National Geographic Children’s Books.

During the semester, assignments included exercises from both photography and children’s literature classes, including theoretical papers on photography in children’s literature, critique and formal analysis of favorite children’s books, and artist’s journals where students responded to, analyzed, and critiqued inspirational pieces found in print media and on the Internet visually and textually. The ultimate project for the course was the creation of the new children’s books.

To create these new books, students used consumer level compact digital cameras that allowed for some degree of control for depth of field and shutter speed. They edited their photos, inserted text, and created book layouts using software products such as Photoshop CS3, InDesign, and iPhoto. We planned for the students to print the books using popular inexpensive online publishers, but we received grant support that allowed them to use a similar service locally at Penn Camera.

Students developed and refined their books based on what they had learned about children‘s interaction with picture books, their own photography and ideas, and feedback and critiques from their classmates. The books ranged in topic and included an ABC photo book with images from around campus, imagination and fantasy stories, personal stories about best friends, adaptations of fairy tales, and a book about nature and seasonal changes on the campus.

When the final books arrived it was quite exciting for our students. They shared them first with our class and then introduced them to their kindergarten book buddies during a final read-together. A few titles remain as a gift at the CYC.

In the future, we would love to do a two-semester class where we could focus on technology and image-making for one semester, and theory and design of children’s books for the other semester, as well as explore how the two can be integrated. Also, a longer time period would allow deeper exploration of the creation of meaning from images as well as critical evaluation of these images. It would also be interesting to take an additional journey through the use of technology WITH the children to create paper-bound books, photographic prints, and multimedia projections utilizing sound and video along with still imagery, creating a true collaboration between the children and college students from theory to practice to production.

Combining our disciplines and the teaching venues of a kindergarten classroom and a computer technology teaching lab gave us the privilege of teaching a class that was rewarding in many ways. Our students felt a sense of accomplishment in having a hard-covered book product from an intense semester of work and enjoyed the opportunity to engage with children, and we were able to provide a collaborative inter-disciplinary, multi-aged learning experience on the University of Maryland campus, while also contributing to the study of utilizing digital technology in the learning environment.